Plato's cave analysis

so book seven of the Republic gives us Plato's cave and this is one of the most famous images in all of philosophy and it has to be understood in the context of the two other images which came before it the Sun and the divided line and the divided line is particularly important because that give us gives us the distinction between what we can understand Epis steamy and what we see the illusions her the laksa we go into that in a more more detail when we're looking at the divided line now the story of the cave is told to Glaucon and Glaucon is one of the most sympathetic pupils of Socrates he's actually Plato his brother as Plato goes through life with the nickname the broad in my images of course I think that a sort of public school boy joke he's not a tall broad he's got no shoulders Glaucon is owl eyed in today's imagery he'd probably be wearing glasses there we are we need to bear in mind all the time that the story is told by Plato in the context of education specifically the education of a guardian the story begins with a simple proposition easy gah and throw on n cat a Gil a kisi spilly öthey prisoners are kept facing a wall they are bound by the feet and the neck so they cannot look round behind them as steps leading to the outside world which they cannot see and above this is a giant fire by the light of this fire they can see their own shadows now there's a road or a walkway in front of this fire along which removed objects or puppets and these cast an image on the wall that the prisoners mistake for reality so echoes echoes echoes which the prisoners believe are the voices of the shadows it's a sort of primitive cinema and this is an ancient version of the carry yoga's shadowplay which still goes on in Greece today puppetry after all is an old art so let's imagine says Socrates that one of these prisoners is released this is a strictly passive operation the prisoners bewitched by the shadows in the cave on the walls and has no desire to change at all he is dragged out it's another instance of what I would call Socrates or Plato 'he's educational violence you get an example of this in the Meno in the Meno Socrates demonstrates how a slave boy can remember what he had apparently learned before his birth in the world of the forms now Socrates describes this process as something like electrification and just before we get to the electrification image and note about true belief and knowledge and when does the one turn into the other it's quite a difficult and a thorny problem which becomes very central to some of the debates in 20th century philosophy but here in the Meno Plato gives us an answer and he gives it to in terms of a one of these myths and the myth of Daedalus now Daedalus not only do we know him because he was cavorting around Crete and flying with Icarus too close to the Sun but he was also working as a sculptor and he made mechanical statues statues that could move around on their own now Socrates says that true belief is like one of these statues so what does he mean true belief is like a moving statue ah there's a moving statue it's exactly what it should be but it's it was here a few minutes ago now it's got what I'm I'm a dutiful Greek I'm going to scatter incense in front of my statue as part of my religious devotions I'm off to scatter incense oh there it's gone it's not there I can't rely on this statue because it's always moving so what we have to do is anchor our statue so that it remains in one place and the same thing with our true belief we have to anchor us our true belief and turn it into knowledge true belief we might get from the lecture room or from a conversation it may be correct but it will only become knowledge with introspection with thought so the slave boy who has no education as made to remember a complicated geometrical solution but first he must be shocked into realizing that he is genuinely ignorant it's his moment of a pariah of doubt he struggles for a solution it's like being numbed or electrocuted by an electric fish by a torpedo it's his moment of pain he feels stupid but then having hit rock bottom he can move forward and remember the truth so the image of pain in the Meno is specific and unpleasant a metaphor perhaps but it's still nasty there's also plenty of that in the cave not only is the cave a story of people who are being tortured in the first place but they actually think it's better to be tortured than to be free in the Meno Plato compares the moment of Apple Riya the moment the first step on the way to knowledge as like being stung like being electrified by an electric fish by a torpedo it's an image of violence and the same image of violence is to be found in the story of the cave two things are important firstly the prisoner is loosened is released the word is leases in irassman Greek lusus it's from the verb the first verb you probably learn if you learn Greek LOUIE LOUIE LOUIE and it becomes a technical term in Neoplatonism and Neoplatonism underpins the developments in Judaism in the first century and in and the development of early Christianity the second point is the prisoner is made to turn round he's not just led out he's made turn round the Greek word is parry Aegon he's made to examine his life the unexamined life is not worth living and finally the third word which needs emphasis is fee C in 5 1 5 C it sounds a little scatological but it means nature and rough translations in the course of nature someone is released someone is loosened it's natural its natural to be educated this is what Plato is saying that the process of release from the cave is natural that it's unnatural to be in the cave the prisoner is led out led up dragged out by someone else he's the passive agent in this story but of course at the end of the story he becomes the active agent because education confers responsibility so let's put all this together the prisoner has been released he's been dragged out of the cave he's ascended up into the light first he sees the fire and he sees the puppeteers then he sees the cave mouth and the steps and he goes up and his eyes cannot adjust to the light of the Sun so first he spends his time looking at reflections and looking in the water and looking at the night sky until finally his eyes have adjusted and he can approach the Sun and once he's got that moment of enlightenment he feels impelled to go back into the cave and tell everybody else and here the story changes slightly and we get an allegory of the life of Socrates himself the person who goes back into the cave and tries to convince these prisoners who are bewitched by the primitive shadow play by their primitive cinema the person who tries to convince him that this is not the truth that the truth is out there the other prisoners will turn on him and kill him as indeed Socrates was forced to drink hemlock and to die you

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Keywords: Plato;, Socrates;, Tim, Wilson;, Necati, Zontul;, Zontulfilms;, divided, line;, animation;, How, to;, episteme;, knowledge;, gnosticism;, the, cave;, glaucon;, republic;, oxford;, eta, Hoffmann;, internet, lessons;, fish;, torpedo;, level;, alevel;, gsce;, undergraduate;, daedalus;, peter, cushing;, karagiosis;, shadow, play;, puppets;, essay, writing;, vaucanson;, automata;, tutorial;, greek;, forms;, allegory;, meno;, slave;, anamnesis;, philosophy;, true, belief;, philosophy, tips;, electric, lecture;, aporia;

Id: axARKd24eHo

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/nope_nic_tesla]

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[u/wsgy111]

brits are so insecure about their lack of soft power that they complain that American English is more popular than British English

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[u/[deleted]]

he reads youbube.com comments

[u/[deleted]]

i speak americannnn english to make british people sad hehaheoih troled triggered gotcha